The International Cricket Council has shelved plans for a World Club Championship and any other new multilateral tournaments until at least 2031, following firm objections from England, Australia and India to expanding the international calendar.
A cricket operations workshop convened in Dubai ended without recommending any new events. The outcome confirms that the next Future Tours Programme, running from 2027 to 2031, will be structured along the same lines as the current cycle rather than broadened with additional ICC-organised competitions.
The ICC had put forward a World Club Championship concept alongside four-team T20 competitions for international sides, to be slotted into extra windows. The three most powerful boards rejected both ideas outright. Their position, according to sources familiar with the discussions, is that new events can only be accommodated if the ICC strips out existing tournaments, including World Cups and the Champions Trophy. One source characterised the ICC’s proposals as a landgrab, while another confirmed that the Big Three have no interest in further multilateral events, even as several smaller member boards expressed support for the ideas.
Why did the three boards resist the ICC’s proposals?
England, Australia and India have locked in bilateral commitments with one another stretching to 2031, leaving their schedules with little flexibility. The Ashes returns to England next summer as the opening series of the new World Test Championship cycle, with the return leg scheduled in Australia in 2029-30. England are also set to visit India for a five-Test series in early 2028 and then host India the following year in 2029.
Those fixtures, combined with existing ICC events, leave almost no room for additional windows. The boards were unwilling to give up bilateral revenue or dismantle established tournaments to make space for new ICC formats. The broadcast rights auction covering 2028 to 2032 already incorporates two T20 World Cups, the Champions Trophy in 2029 and the 50-over World Cup in 2031, making the schedule heavily congested.
What is driving the ICC’s strategic review?
The ICC engaged US consultancy McKinsey to conduct a strategic review after growing concern that media rights income could fall sharply from next year. McKinsey’s findings are due to be presented to ICC members at a quarterly meeting in Bali next month.
The anxiety is centred on the Indian broadcast market. Disney Star paid 3.1 billion US dollars for ICC rights in India covering 2024 to 2027. That company subsequently merged with Viacom 18 to form JioStar, eliminating a major competitor from the bidding landscape and casting doubt over whether the next cycle will generate a comparable sum.
India accounts for roughly 70 per cent of cricket’s total global revenue, and the Indian rights deal alone underpins the bulk of the ICC’s 3.5 billion US dollar global broadcast income. The ICC has acknowledged that any shortfall from India cannot realistically be offset by revenues from other markets. Separately, the ICC is weighing an expansion of the World Test Championship from ten to 12 teams from next year, with Afghanistan, Ireland and Zimbabwe identified as potential additions.
